It is difficult when working on a ladder to carry and hold tools, brushes, and/or materials. For example, when a person stands upon one of the rungs of a ladder to paint the side of a structure, it is necessary to hold the paint can in one hand and the brush in the other, all the while maintaining one's balance on the ladder. This is tiring and difficult to do especially over long periods of time. It would not be unusual for a person so situated to drop the brush or spill paint from the can. This leads to unwanted and messy stains which must be cleaned up.
Various devices have been proposed for attachment to a ladder to assist the user in supporting a paint can or in holding tools. Many of these devices are designed to fit or clamp around central portions of one or more of the ladder rungs. When in place, these devices cover at least a portion of a rung that is located above the rung on which the user is standing. If the user wishes to ascend further up the ladder, such passage may be blocked, or at least made more difficult, by the installed device. The device might first have to be removed from the ladder to allow the user to proceed further up the ladder.
Other object holding accessories for a ladder are installed by inserting at least a portion of the accessory into one end of one of the rungs of a hollow rung ladder. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,259,525 to Wion shows a paint can holder having a handle or support arm that fits inside a hollow ladder rung. A wedge can be pounded in to wedge or lock the support arm in place.
Some ladder accessory devices are supported on brackets that fit around a side rail of the ladder. One such device is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,826,844 to Purdy. In the Purdy device, a U-shaped bracket fits around a ladder side rail with an outer wall of the bracket having two slots through which a strap may be threaded. The strap can be tightened around a paint can to support the paint can.
The Purdy device has various disadvantages. If the bracket is installed on the side rail before the strap is inserted, it would be difficult to thread the strap through the slots as these slots would be very close to, if not covered by, the side rail itself. If one attempts to thread the strap and install the paint can before the bracket is installed on the side rail, then it would be awkward and difficult to install the bracket without spilling paint from the paint can. Moreover, the strap is useful only for supporting a tubular type container, such as a paint can, and is not adaptable for holding other things on the side rail of the ladder. Thus, the Purdy bracket and strap system is quite limited in what can be attached to the ladder and would be difficult to install.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,895,700 to Johnson discloses a support bracket that is attached to the side rail of a ladder. The bracket includes outwardly turned flanges having two pairs of aligned vertical holes. A paint can holder in the form of a circular ring has a pair of downwardly extending feet that slip into the pairs of holes on the flanges to support the ring to one side of the ladder in a cantilever fashion. Paint cans of various sizes are then dropped into and supported by the ring. Thus, the Johnson support bracket is able to support the paint can holder without using a flexible strap that has to be threaded through slots in the bracket.
While the brackets shown in the Johnson and Purdy patents are useful in holding paint cans and the like to one side of a ladder, they have various disadvantages. Ladders have differently sized and shaped side rail and rung configurations. Thus, a particular bracket might work well with one ladder but not another. And, even when a bracket purports to be somewhat adjustable, like the bracket of Johnson, the adjustment is somewhat clumsy and time consuming to do. Thus, it will take some time for the user to properly adjust the bracket and install it on the ladder side rail. There is a need in the art for a support bracket that is truly universal in the sense of fitting almost every ladder on the market, but yet is quick and easy to install and uninstall.
In addition, most known brackets are used for supporting a particular object holding accessory that is designed for the particular bracket. As an example, the Johnson patent shows a circular ring for holding a paint can. The paint can is specifically designed with the downwardly extending feet that are necessary to drop the ring down onto the Johnson support bracket. This same structure is not disclosed as being useful for holding other things, such as a paint roller pan.
Moreover, paint roller pans have different characteristics from paint cans and must be supported more carefully than paint cans since the paint in an open paint roller pan is more prone to being spilled than the paint in a paint can. It is more important that a paint roller pan be kept extremely level despite any sideward tilt or inclination of the ladder itself or of the holder. This is not as much of a problem with a paint can since a paint can is deeper than a paint roller pan and the paint can be kept at a lower level in the paint can. But, with a paint roller pan, since the pan is shallow and the paint must be kept closer to the top of the pan to provide a sufficient supply of paint in the pan, leveling of the pan while the pan is supported on the ladder is far more important.
Yet, known attachments or accessories for supporting paint roller pans on ladders do not take this into account or provide for easy leveling of the paint roller pan. They further do not do so on a bracket that is also designed and equally useful for holding paint cans. Thus, there is also a need in the art for a support bracket that may be quickly and easily attached to a ladder and that is equally useful for supporting either a paint can holder or a paint roller pan holder to one side of the ladder. Such a bracket and/or the paint roller pan holder ideally should be able to level the paint roller pan in a quick and easy manner.